Another IF

This looks like a fairly good place to start this update.

From: The Darwin Awards
Subject: Surprise Attack Surprise

(3 January 2005, St. Maurice, Switzerland) It was the first week of a weapons refresher course, and Swiss Army Grenadier Detachment 20/5 had just finished training with live ammunition. The shooting instructor ordered the soldiers to secure their weapons for a break.

The 24-year-old second lieutenant, in charge of this detachment, decided this would be a good time to demonstrate a knife attack on a soldier. Wielding his bayonet, he leaped toward one of his men, achieving complete surprise.

But earlier that week, the soldiers had been drilled to release the safety catch and ready their guns for firing in the shortest possible time. The surprised soldier, seeing his lieutenant leaping toward him with a knife, snapped off a shot to protect himself from the attack.

The lesson could not have been more successful: the soldier had saved himself and protected the rest of the detachment from a surprise attack. The lieutenant might have wished to commend his soldier on his quick action and accurate marksmanship. Unfortunately, he had been killed with one shot.

Normally I’d talk bikes here, but most of the stuff I’ve been looking at recently has nowt to do with bikes at all so it’s not a particularly bike orientated post at all. Well apart from the fact the best saddles in the world just got even better – check out the Bel Air RL. So I guess that’s the saddle for the new IF sorted then. Oops guess I let that one out of the bag eh?

The Independent Fabrication family has grown and there’s a shiny new addition to the collection. If I was like the characters in Dear Wendy I’d probably have names for them all but I don’t. At the end of the day they’re bikes. Very nice bikes, but not as valuable as people and especially someone you really love and care about. Bikes can always be replaced, people can’t be. Anyway this particular new bike is still languishing in a fairly big cardboard box awaiting some fairly fundamental components to bring it to life, pictures will follow when it lives.

I read this a while back and it sounds like a pretty good idea. How many times do you wish you could watch that show you missed when you were late back from biking at the weekend:

From: Steve Malone, MacUser
Subject: BBC to offer legal free downloads of TV shows

The BBC is to allow British online users to legally download TV and radio programmes from the Internet up to seven days after their transmission. The announcement was made by Mark Thompson, the BBC Director General, in a speech at the Edinburgh Festival over the weekend.

Under the plans announced by Thompson, it is hoped that the new service called MyBBCPlayer will be launched next year. In addition to recently broadcast material, the BBC also hopes to include more of its archive online as downloads as well.

With some programmes, the BBC may go one step further. As well as offering downloads at the same time they are broadcast, some shows may even become available online before they appear on TV. In a pilot, the BBC Three comedy The Mighty Boosh has appeared on the Internet before TV. The corporation says that the comedy Titty Bang Bang, the sitcom ‘Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps and the Johnny Vegas vehicle ‘Ideal’ will be made available on the Internet first.

The BBC has already trialled a service of radio programmes and was surprised when it put the Beethoven symphonies online and received over 600,000 downloads.

The programmes are to be limited to British online users – who finance the corporation through their licences only. The BBC says it has gone to some lengths to ensure that Internet users from the US and elsewhere do not get a free ride.

The move is likely to infuriate online purists who will say the point of the Internet is to allow access to content from anywhere in the world. However, the BBC is looking for additional ways to add value to the licence as the government is currently scrutinising the licence system as part of the charter renewal process.

That said, the move is also likely to inflame those who say that the BBC will be encouraging the so-called ‘digital divide’ of those licence payers who will benefit by having a broadband connection and those who do not.

And Finally

From: Mike T
Subject: A Little Chuckle

A Jelly Baby walks into a bar and starts talking to a smartie. After a few beers the Smartie says “Ere, a bunch of us are heading to that new club, fancy tagging along?”

The Jelly Baby says “No mate, I’m a soft centre, I always end up getting my head kicked in”

“So?”, Smartie says. “Don’t worry about it, I’m a bit of a hard case, I’ll look after you”

Jelly Baby thinks about it for a minute and says “Fair enough, as long as you’ll look after me”, and off they go. After a few more beers in the club, three Lockets walk in. As soon as he sees them, Smartie hides under the table.

The Lockets take one look at jelly Baby and start kicking him, breaking cola bottles over his little jelly head, lamping him with little sugary chairs, and generally having a laugh. After a while they get bored and walk out.

Jelly Baby pulls his battered Jelly Baby body over to the table and wipes up his Jelly Baby blood. He turns to Smartie and says “I thought you were going to look after me!” “I was!” says Smartie,” But them Lockets are f**king menthol”